


mermaid movement

by campholmes



Series: california summer [3]
Category: RuPaul's Drag Race RPF
Genre: Angst, F/F, Fluff, Transphobia, both angst and fluff! fuck
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-16
Updated: 2017-03-16
Packaged: 2018-10-06 04:22:27
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,270
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10325516
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/campholmes/pseuds/campholmes
Summary: Trixie is curvy and gentle, she moves like she’s in hot, steamy water and sometimes Katya thinks she’s on the other side of the glass at the aquarium, and Trixie is tapping on the glass to get her attention from in the blue-green but Katya can’t focus on her, the thick glass curved so her eyes blur, cross, and water.





	

**Author's Note:**

> AN: hello! this is maybe/probably the last part of this fic but honestly who knows! thank you all so much for all of the lovely comments :’)) love you all. I had a full workday of doing literally nothing to write this, so here it is! my add prevents me from ever writing in a straight line and Katya calling Trixie “baby bluebird” came to me in a dream lol. smoking is a recurring theme in this, transphobia is discussed but is not overt. if you don’t know, st. basil’s cathedral is the fancy building in the red square in moscow. this is such an au meaning that i'm not going to write their real families into this in case you are confused by that. hope you like!! each part gets longer and longer lol mostly because my emotions keep getting bigger reg. these two. feat. metaphorical aquariums, Drama, banana clips.

Katya lies in the tub, long fingers running along the condensation on the green-tiled wall. She is almost completely submerged but for her right hand on the wall and the circle of her face, her hair a halo around her. She isn’t floating but she knows what it feels like to float, and her left hand is running up and down her soft thigh absentmindedly. There’s a (scentless) candle burning on the edge of the tub, the wax piled up around it from months of baths. She had been reading but her book is turned over marking her spot on the towel on the floor, and she closes her eyes lightly and breathes in deeply. 

She and Trixie don’t usually fight. Not really, sometimes they have disagreements and that’s okay, since Trixie isn’t Katya and vice versa, and Katya thinks it’s good, since they’re both their own people and Katya doesn’t want to change herself for Trixie and she would _never_ want Trixie to change for her. She had made herself a bath for the sole purpose of considering all angles, of entertaining all possibilities. Is she right to be angry with Trixie? What if Trixie doesn’t come back? Is Trixie okay? Is _Katya_ okay? She takes another deep breath.

It’s no secret to Katya that Trixie’s parents have no clue that Trixie is in a long-term relationship with a trans woman, and Katya has never been bothered by it. She’s a true believer in the fact that your family doesn’t really deserve to know everything about you, and she believes that biological families are simply blood-related people, and blood doesn’t mean anything at all. But this time, since Trixie wants to go home to visit for the first time in _years_ , Katya is worried about her. She just wants to know if Trixie would be okay if she went, and she also wants to ask why she wants to go. It’s been years since Trixie has seen her family in person, she texts her mom and her siblings every so often but not enough to lead to her visiting them. 

Plus, Katya and Trixie are their _own_ family, along with all of their friends, of course.

```

Trixie could look at Katya for hours and hours. She wants to run her eyes across every atom and pore in her skin, she wants to trace every scar with her fingertips, she wants to lick every surface. Katya is the most beautiful person she has ever seen, and Trixie wants to pour honey across her toned stomach and trace its stickiness with her fingertips, lick it out of her bellybutton. Katya moisturizes her dry skin with vaseline, which makes her skin soft and sometimes moist, smooth and Trixie loves to run her hands along all of her limbs, loves to paint Katya’s nails red and rub lotion over her cuticles and kiss each fingertip when she’s done.

Every day Katya looks different. Her hair sits differently, her makeup is different or she doesn’t wear makeup at all, sometimes she wears black lipstick, sometimes she wears blue eyeshadow. 

Trixie loves to catalog each and every look in her memory, placed gently amongst everything else she knows about Katya. 

Katya prefers red and black lingerie, and said lingerie is _always_ intricate and beautiful, whether it be mesh or lace or patterned in flowers. Katya is obsessed with undergarments, which Trixie appreciates. Katya will often wear high-waisted denim shorts and a torn white crop-top but underneath she is always wearing a lacy red bra and thong. It’s often too much for Trixie to handle.

Katya likes to bike everywhere, and she goes on hikes and runs multiple times a week, and Trixie has never really gotten into that but when Katya comes home she’s deliciously sweaty, and sometimes her breasts are almost completely visible through a faded wet shirt, and Trixie will push her up against the door the minute she comes in, kiss her hard and drop to her knees to suck her dick.

And Katya never complains about this but she does question why Trixie thinks her sweaty body is so appealing. Trixie just giggles at this and pulls her in the shower after her.

Trixie loves Katya just out of the shower, with her hair tangled and wet, fresh-faced, wrapped in just a towel and warm. Katya will sit on the end of their bed and methodically rub vaseline all over her entire body, rolling her shoulders, and she reaches for her feet and the muscles across her back will ripple, and Trixie drools over it. Katya is _so_ fucking hot, and Trixie is so lucky.

```

Katya thinks that she’s right to be angry with Trixie. She thinks that her concerns are coming from the right place. Trixie’s family has always been awkward with Trixie being gay, and Katya can’t imagine they would ever accept her and Trixie’s relationship.

Just because Katya doesn’t care what they think doesn’t mean that Trixie doesn’t care either or that Trixie _shouldn’t_ care what they think. Katya is lucky to have her family, and even though she doesn’t talk with them often the talks she _does_ have with them are wonderful and intellectually stimulating. Her parents have always loved her, have always supported her and accepted her for exactly who she is. 

Trixie was so angry, _so angry_ when Katya asked her if she was sure that this was a good idea. And Katya knew that she was angry because she was scared, too. Katya prides herself on knowing Trixie better than Trixie knows Trixie. She still has to apologize and explain herself.

She’s texted Pearl but Pearl hasn’t responded yet. She emerges from the bath slowly and dries herself off with the towel, walks to the bed and sits down naked, pulling out her phone to text Kim. Kim responds in the affirmative, Trixie is with her and she isn’t sure why she is angry.

Katya is nervous, Trixie doesn’t usually stay angry for this long. Katya rarely gets angry, and when she does it’s about larger world issues--she’s had enough anger and hate directed at her from complete strangers in her life that she can’t really find it in herself to hate anyone that she loves. 

Trixie’s eyes are blue--bright blue, so blue and open, and Katya can lose herself in them any time she wants because she has them memorized, can recall their shape and color at any time, in any place, in any state of mind.

```

Trixie had heard about Katya many times before, from many of her friends. She knew she would like Katya, and she hoped that Katya would like her, too. She seemed extremely intimidating and, for lack of a better word, _cool_ , and Trixie was hoping that she would be cool enough for Katya to like her.

Trixie walked in the room to find Katya laying on the floor, legs spread wide with Violet next to her, reading a fashion magazine in which Violet was pointing out something to her on the page. When she walked in, Katya looked up from the magazine and grinned widely, her perfect teeth gleaming in the dim light of the room, and jumped up, hugging Trixie tightly and proclaiming how nice it was to finally meet her.

She didn’t notice-- or maybe she did-- that Trixie’s jaw was on the floor. Katya was arrestingly beautiful and Trixie was maybe a little bit in love.

Katya took Trixie’s warm hand with her quick one and pulled her down next to her, picked up the magazine and motioned for Violet to continue.

When Katya was otherwise occupied with the Gucci spread, Violet glanced over her head at Trixie, who was still completely in awe. They winked at her, earning a scowl. Violet had been the one to tell Trixie that Katya was hot, and that Trixie would like her. Trixie had paid Violet no mind, they thought that _everyone_ was hot and Trixie didn’t usually get crushes or really focus that much on women or dating at all, and she had been so foolish to brush Violet off.

That night, Katya was so fun and kind, and she was so bright. Trixie had never seen someone who was so full of life, so ready to live in the right now, and she stared at her, looked into her green eyes. And Katya was so funny, and she laughed at Trixie’s jokes too.

And when it was time to leave, Trixie and Katya left Violet’s together, and in their shared uber Katya passed her phone over for Trixie to type her number in. Trixie fumbled with it for a second, but put her name as “Trixieee” with a pink heart. Katya took her phone back at her apartment and leaned across the seat, and kissed Trixie’s cheek. She left with a wink.

And Trixie watched the houses and streets go by outside of the window of the uber, her eyes drooping but not closing, and her mouth twisted in a small smile. Katya was beyond, and if she could see the stars beyond the lights of downtown Los Angeles she was sure that she would see Katya out there with them. That night she lay in her bed in the dark with the window open so she could hear the cars outside and the frogs, and she thought of the soft press of Katya’s pillowy lips on her cheek, how Katya smelled and how her fingers encircled her bicep as she pushed herself out of the car.

When Trixie woke up in the morning, a little bit later than usual, she had a text from an unknown number that read: “Hey! It’s Katya. Hope you slept well ;). Maybe this is too forward but I’m in the business of being a real and honest Woman...how would you feel about going out on a date?”

```

Sometimes Trixie wakes up in the night twisted in the blankets of their bed and Katya’s legs. And Katya has always been a light sleeper, and she will wake up too.

Katya likes Trixie in the middle of the night, quiet and confused and so sweet, an earth angel. Katya will take Trixie into her arms and whisper “Time to sleep, baby bluebird,” and stroke her hair until she drifts off again.

```

Trixie’s hands are warm, her whole body is warm, and Katya is sometimes so cold. When the weather gets down to 50° her fingers lose heat and turn white, and Trixie will rub each fingertip until the warmth comes back. Trixie is curvy and gentle, she moves like she’s in hot, steamy water and sometimes Katya thinks she’s on the other side of the glass at the aquarium, and Trixie is tapping on the glass to get her attention from in the blue-green but Katya can’t focus on her, the thick glass curved so her eyes blur, cross, and water.

The disconnect is most apparent when Trixie doesn’t get it. Often, Trixie doesn’t want to stop for a smoke break, sometimes she gets angry when Katya doesn’t respond to her texts. Katya obviously _wants_ to stop smoking, _wants_ to make Trixie happy. Sometimes she’s sure that she isn’t good enough. 

But then Trixie will buy her cigarettes when she’s run out, will bike to the gas station down the street and get some for her, and Katya has kept every single empty pack Trixie has bought as an apology flattened out in a shoebox in the closet with the date of the fight scrawled on each one in sharpie. When she quits she will have each box as a reminder of why.

For Katya’s 29th birthday, Trixie makes a chocolate cake and draws the outline of St Basil’s Cathedral in red frosting on top, 29 candles in a ring around the edge. She invites all of their friends over and hangs fairy lights and streamers all around the house. She buys red and white polka dot plates, napkins, and cups from Target along with plenty of peach juice and coffee ice cream for everyone. She puts the pink-and-white tablecloth from her old apartment on the table and lights candles. 

Katya feels old but she also feels real, feels established and grounded. She has never imagined having a family but now maybe she could-- could imagine growing old for one, but specifically growing old with Trixie and children by her side, Real Lesbian Moms, throwing dinner parties and driving the kids to school in a beat-up minivan.

Trixie is busy being the host, but every once in a while she encircles Katya’s waist from behind with her arms and buries her nose in the corner between Katya’s neck and shoulder, grinning against her skin, whispering _“happy birthday”_ or _“I love you”_.

Katya feels warm all around, the dim pink light of the rooms and the loud laughter of their friends, the windows open to the darkness just like Trixie likes it, so much love and community around her, people who are here for her, and here for Trixie, and here for the both of them.

Katya will die for this to never end, and the best part is that she doesn’t think that she’ll have to.

```

Katya dries her hair and sighs as it puffs up immediately, pulls half of it into the tortiseshell banana clip on the bathroom counter. She’s still naked but nobody else is home and nobody is coming home anytime soon, she’s sure.

The bathroom lights around the water-spotted mirror reflect off of the green tile and surround her in a warm glow as she stares herself down. She wants to light a cigarette, wants to shut the door and surround herself with smoke until she chokes and has no new air to breathe, gasping until Trixie will open the door, pull her out by her left arm and swaddle her in a pink towel, drag her into the backyard where she can breathe fresh air. It’s never happened before but Katya has imagined it many a time.

But Trixie isn’t here, and Katya has to stare herself down in the mirror like this, tell herself out loud that she can’t smoke in the house, she’s trying to quit.

This time, she can tell that Trixie wants to be alone, or with Kim, whatever. She has a few distinct moods when she’s angry or frustrated, and this is the one where Katya needs to leave her alone, let her breathe fresh air rather than the sharp smoke that follows Katya wherever she goes.

Trixie needs to _take breaks_ from Katya, is what she needs.

Katya often feels too much, and she knows that Trixie is one of the only people on Earth that doesn’t think that Katya is “too much”, Katya’s past girlfriends and boyfriends texting her goodbye saying _“I’m sorry, it’s not going to work out. It was just too much.”_. Katya used to have confidence that Trixie had never felt that way, but now she’s not so sure.

```

Trixie doesn’t want to be angry. She wishes she could sublimate her anger into love, or a passion for volunteering, or maybe the motivation to go grocery shopping. But instead she’s angry at Katya for worrying about her. Trixie is so hyper-aware that she is in the wrong, and she’s also aware that Katya probably thinks that _she’s_ in the wrong, which is just making Trixie more upset.

But she doesn’t know how she can apologize.

The main issue is that Trixie doesn’t really _want_ to visit her family, she just feels a little bit guilty that her family knows nothing about her life. And, selfishly, she wants to use Katya as some kind of card to play, wants to shove the reality of her trans life-partner (as in, she’s never leaving Katya, not until the day she dies) in their faces, wants them to be angry with her so that she can yell, wants to force them to face the reality of life and the reality of _Trixie_ , how she loves Katya more than she has ever loved any of them and more than she ever will.

And it’s not fair of her. And she’s not going to visit them.

Kim let her lay on her guest bedroom bed for a few hours without asking questions, let her have the silence and brain-space she needed, but Trixie knows that soon she will be knocking on the door, asking Trixie if she’s okay, and if Katya and her broke up.

Trixie sighs loudly and sits up, her long hair pulling out from under her elbow.

```

Katya is still standing in the bathroom completely naked, staring at herself in the mirror, feeling cramping all the way down from her earlobes to her feet, and the door opens.

She doesn’t hear it, but when Trixie’s arms surround her softly she collapses into them, lets out all of her breath and allows herself to be led to the bed, slotted between the soft sheets and Trixie’s soft skin. 

“I’m sorry,” Trixie whispers right into Katya’s ear, her warm breath tickling Katya’s neck.

Katya rolls around so that she can lock eyes with Trixie, see the blue that is so familiar, and the wide pupils. Katya strokes her fingers across Trixie’s soft, round cheek where there are a couple tear tracks along the pink skin. Katya smiles softly and her heart is wide, expanded, aching.

“It’s okay,” she whispers back, running her fingertips along Trixie’s perfectly-trimmed brows.

“No, it’s not. Not this time. Katya … I was being so selfish, I wanted to make them angry about you so I could be angry at them. I was feeling guilty, like they were maybe not as bad as I remembered-- I wanted so bad to tell them that I love you more than them,” tears were dripping down Trixie’s cheeks now, her blue eyes beyond the warped aquarium glass that Katya hated so much, and Katya understood now.

Trixie’s words are falling out of her mouth like lemmings off a cliff, not one-by-one but all on top of each other, pushing and shoving, and Katya takes a corner of the sheet to wipe her tears as they continue to fall.

“It’s okay, it’s okay. It wasn’t okay but it is now, I was just worried about us,” Katya wants Trixie to stop, she doesn’t want her to cry anymore, her earth angel.

Trixie sobs quickly and takes a deep, fast breath in. She closes her eyes for a moment. “And that’s why I’m so sorry,” she apologizes, fumbling for Katya’s shaking hand with her own in her private darkness. Katya grips her fingers between her own, kisses the middle of Trixie’s palm. 

“I accept your apology baby bird. I accept!” Katya giggles a little at Trixie’s despair, now that she knows that Trixie was just as worried as she was she can breathe easier, can laugh at what would certainly be another pack of Camels in the shoebox. Trixie giggles too, though it’s a little watery, and pulls Katya in to her by her bare shoulders. 

Katya lets herself be held in Trixie, let Trixie’s fingernails lightly press into her spine, counting the discs. Katya wants to donate her bones to science when she dies, but she hopes that whatever college they are sent to, Trixie’s go there too. She wants her bones to be laid in a box, mixed with Trixie’s, clacking against each other long after their deaths and into eternity, because Trixie lives among the stars already with her soft skin and blonde hair and mermaid movement.


End file.
